Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Traitor to Detroit?

Let's just get this out there, cuz somebody's gotta say it, and the Infiniti-driving Debbie Wasserman Schultz is apparently too thick-tongued to articulate anything other than decades-old talking points. So here it goes: Debbie Wasserman Schultz did not lie, and did not display ignorance of, the country in which her car was made.

I know this sounds incredible, because everybody and their mother has been freaking out about Wasserman Schultz's defense of the auto industry bailout, in which she said:

If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry go down the tubes.

This has been a scandal everywhere, for some reason, and I'm still trying to decide whether that's more indicative of Republican venality, stupidity, or desperation. Some combination thereof, perhaps. To dispatch with this business forever, let's imagine a few situations in which similar expressions might be used.

Imagine Henry Kissinger saying: "If Heisenberg had figured out the bomb, we'd all be speaking German."

Or Condoleezza Rice saying: "If Marx had been right, we'd all be studying dialectical materialism in school."

Or Elvis Presley saying: "If it hadn't been for all those black musicians on Beale Street, we'd all be playing country music."

Of course, Henry Kissinger does speak German. (Because he's German.) Condoleezza Rice did study dialectical materialism. (Her academic career focused on Soviet politics.) Elvis did play country music. (And he was good at it.) Yet none of the above statements would have made them liars. Show's over, folks; there's nothing to see here.